1. Field of the invention
The present invention is related to the field of board games.
2. Description of the prior art
Board games that include play-money have adopted terms related to actual wealth, such as money, salary, cash, assets, investments, etc. without the prefix "play-". In such games, the players typically pursue wealth in some manner that usually relates to investments. They start with some cash, are paid a salary, and invest money to control assets, usually by purchase and ownership. Such assets that are available for control usually have some return on investment, designed to enhance the player's wealth. In some of these board games the board presents a track subdivided in token spaces. The players move tokens around the track, usually according to the roll of the dice. In such games, a player's eligibility to purchase an asset is often determined by various factors, such as by the movement or position of tokens.
A problem in the prior art is the length of time a game might last. A game might not be socially enjoyable if it takes a very long time to end formally. One prior art solution to this problem is to limit the game time by relying on artificial external factors, such as either a maximum game time, or a fixed number of rounds of play.
Another problem in the games of the prior art is that side competitions for acquisition of specially desired assets can be passive, because of the lack of control of where a player's token will go. The lack of control results from rules of movement of the token that depend exclusively on chance. For example, in the game of MONOPOLY (U.S. Pat. No. 2,026,082), the BOARDWALK property is, at least theoretically, the most desirable property (asset) to purchase, as it has the highest percent return on investment, and additionally there is a Chance card that will send tokens directly to the property during the game. The rules of acquisition of the game dictate that whoever lands on a property first has a first option to buy it. As a result, there is always a side competition between players to get to the BOARDWALK space first during the game. However, this side competition is passive, in that its winner is determined by chance.